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Comment by yellowstuff | Hacker News Reader

I don't see this as paradoxical. For babies past a couple months old a lot of cries are actually manipulative, and a more empathetic person can better distinguish them. I think my wife and I started sleeping training our son at around 12 weeks old, and quickly learned to tell the difference between a "complaining" cry that meant he was unhappy but he could probably soothe himself, and a "real" cry that meant he was really upset and needed our attention. Both of those were quite different from the sharp cries that indicated physical pain or something very distressing.

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I really dislike projecting the adult trait of "manipulative" onto a baby. Adults manipulate by being underhanded when they have the option of being straightforward. The baby is being straightforward. What do you want the kid to do to communicate? "I am unhappy and while I could probably soothe myself I would like a parent's attention" -- hard to say all those words when you don't have language. What else can the kid do? Get a pet? drink whiskey? send you a text message? call a therapist?

Crying is a baby's only tool, and babies are certainly allowed to feel emotions like boredom, disgust, annoyance, cold, as well as physical pain. You're also allowed to ignore your bored or upset child. But don't call it manipulation when the kid is being absolutely aboveboard and straightforward. Viewing it as 'manipulation' actually increases the likelihood, in my view, that you'll raise a duplicitous child, because from babyhood on the kid'll be taught that saying directly what you want is frowned upon.

As for sleep training, mentioned by a sibling commenter, our reactions to a baby's cries are definitely directly related to kid's bedtime patterns, and I would advocate for a middle road: there's no need to be rigid about a philosophy. With our kid, we'd wait five minutes for crying to stop. Any kid and any adult can wait out five minutes when it's just bedtime, not a question of physical distress. If the kid was still crying after five minutes, check in; if the kid is asleep, win! The kid knows they're not being abandoned for all eternity; you know you don't have to listen to this (*& forever; and we were lucky that it never took us more than 15 minutes (two checkins) before kid fell asleep. Children are different; YMMV.

I think you're right, "manipulative" has negative connotations that aren't appropriate in this context. When a baby is overcome with distress and cries instinctively I think it's important to always soothe them, when they cry as a mix of displeasure and communication then depending on the baby it may not be necessary to rush to them every time.

A couple months old baby is not capable to be manipulative. That requires reasoning, predicting and emphating abilities they don't have.

I don't know why you're being downvoted, it's pretty much documented. I think it's at around 6 months when they start being able to connect the dots... barely :-)

Deception doesn’t require consciousness or reasoning. I feel like there are many different personal definitions for manipulation here and people are just disagreeing indirectly on that.

Deception and manipulation are much different things. In any cases, babies lack the ability to lie or pretend.

You really need to stretch definitions to absurd to get near to deception too. They cry cause discomfort and really have no idea how you will react or what you will think f about that.

Babies are dumb and simple biological mechanisms from this point of view.

Did you have a hard time convincing your wife to do sleep training on your kid? My wife thinks it’s abusive. I think it’s abusive to everyone else in the house not to do it!

Don't know. Thought the same, but my wife said one thing that stuck with me: "Life's short. They'll leave on their own anyway and then you'll miss this".

I gave in and still put our 4 and 6 year olds to sleep in our big family bed, then teleport them later. After being a bit annoyed in the beginning, I've changed my mind by now. Bringing them to bed is honestly the best thing ever.

Whether it is abusive 100% depends on how your kids reacts. Some will stop crying and with cry hard anyway. Others will cry for over 2 hours super strong (and then friend who had such kid decided this wont be done again).

Babies are not copies, they react in various ways.

From what I see/hear/experience, every kid is different.

As some stranger on the internet said:

"After I had my first kid, I thought I was God's gift to parenting. A few years later I had a second kid and he cured me of such misconceived notions." :-D

This reminds me of Thanksgiving at my brother's house. He has 3 teenage sons, and they were all super helpful while we were there.

My wife asked him how he raised such helpful kids and he said: bribery. If they behaved well and helped with things they would be getting a video game of their choice.

My wife wouldn't entertain the idea. Then the pediatrician pointed out that children screaming in their cribs have a much better survival rate than kids whose parents fall asleep at the wheel because they haven't slept in a week.

That night it took my daughter less than 15 minutes to stop screaming, and then everyone in the house slept for 6 hours straight.

In less than a week she was smiling when we put her down for the night.

I hope it works out that well for you.

Every baby is different and every parent is different. Sleep training worked well for my family but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for yours.

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